Dr John – Soothsayer Extraordinaire

When Dr John Reid held high office, he implemented some major ventures.

On 10 May 2007, when John Reid was Home Secretary, he wrote: “Out of 27 EU member states 24 already have identity cards. If we do not take this step we risk exploitation, fraud and terrorism. As home secretary (sic) it is my duty to protect the public and secure our future.

A large part of this responsibility depends on an effective scheme to safeguard identities. Only the state can provide such a universal system, define the standards and be accountable for it.

There will be people who say we shouldn't do it. But I believe the benefits are indisputable”.

As Defence Secretary, John Reid ordered British troops into Helmand in 2006. He said: "We are in the south to help and protect the Afghan people construct their own democracy. We would be perfectly happy to leave in three years and without firing one shot because our job is to protect the reconstruction".

Quite a track record.

Prescience? Foresight? Eligibility for High Office? I think not.

So, on behalf of all those serving in our Armed Forces, here’s a number* for you, Dr John.



* After the death of Steve Marriott, the lead singer of Humble Pie, the band asked Peter Frampton (who had been in the band in its early days) to rejoin for a memorial concert. This is the 2nd part of this stonking track - if you like it, the first part is on You Tube, but sadly cannot be embedded in the blog.

In Memoriam

When you go home,
Remember us, and say,
For your tomorrow,
We gave our yesterday.

For the 360 who have died in Iraq and Afghanistan

An Honourable Man

Peter Hitchens may not be everyone’s cup of tea.

He tends to generate strong feelings among those who read or hear him. He is either loathed or loved.

I do not loathe him.

While I may not agree with every one of his views, I admire him for the consistency and courage with which he expresses them, because they are based on a personal philosophy that is tested by experience and thoroughly thought through.

A socialist in his youth, he has, over his years, applied a considerable intellect to the worth of his values and tempered them on the fire of life and experience. He has settled on traditional, conservative and Christian principles, with which I broadly agree.

He is an honourable man.

He is also a most courteous man. In his blog he takes time to respond to his correspondents politely and in detail, correcting inaccuracies and restating his point when it has been missed.

He has a gift for dry, witty demolition of cant. In his post today, he conducts a delightfully forensic demolition of one of his opponents’ arguments, which I reproduce for the enjoyment of those who have not seen it:

‘Dave’ disagrees with me that the word 'homophobia' is a propaganda invention. Well, it would be interesting to trace its history and usage. It isn't in my beat-up and disintegrating Shorter Oxford Dictionary at all, but since that's half a century old, I'm not especially surprised. I'd guess it first found its way into dictionaries in the last five to ten years, and that it owes its origin to an American college campus, perhaps the University of Madison in Wisconsin, which I think is the birthplace of PC speech codes.

This weblog's full-time etymologist, Wilfrid, summoned complaining from his dusty, cobwebbed cubicle, writes: ’As a word “homophobia” is a triple nonsense, and the compilers of the Oxford Dictionary wouldn't have given it house room in the days when they stood up for serious knowledge. Those who use it almost invariably give away their ignorance as soon as they pronounce it, with the first syllable rhyming with "dome". In fact the first syllable of the word “homosexual” ought to rhyme with “Somme”. Why?

Because the “homo” concerned is a Greek word, meaning “the same” as in “homogeneous” or “homogenized” or “homophone”. And that is how it is pronounced. First syllable rhyming with “Somme” or “Bomb”. This helps to distinguish it from the Latin word “homo”, which means “man”. Ill-informed people have long thought that the word “homosexual” meant “person attracted sexually to men”, which is why you get the ridiculous coupling of “homosexual and Lesbian”. Lesbians are homosexuals. But they're female homosexuals.

‘Then there's “phobia”. This is also from a Greek root, meaning fear or dislike of. So, the two Greek words put together would mean “fear of the same”, which is meaningless drivel. Whereas if it's a hybrid, pseudo-classical word (like “Television”) it would mean 'fear of man', which it plainly doesn't. The only way in which “homophobia” makes sense at all is if it's a semi-literate coupling of a Greek word with an old English abusive slang word for a homosexual, not in use now and not heard in use by me these 40 years, ie “homo” (pronounced to rhyme with “Omo”, a washing powder popular in the 1960s).’

Wilfrid's a bit pompous for modern tastes - but he knows his stuff. He adds, perhaps more in hope than in certainty: ‘The compilers of the Oxford dictionary seem to have had a bit of a dispute about this, because there are two completely separate entries for “homophobia”. The first (described as “rare” which is a bit of an understatement) is "Fear or hatred of the male sex or humankind". The second gives "fear or hatred of homosexuals and homosexuality". Then we get "homophobe- a person who is afraid of or hostile to homosexuals and homosexuality”.

Thank you, Wilfrid.

Delicious.

Scientific Objectivity

In a recent article in the Daily Telegraph, Christopher Booker reported that:

Over the coming days a curiously revealing event will be taking place in Copenhagen. Top of the agenda at a meeting of the Polar Bear Specialist Group, set up under the International Union for the Conservation of Nature/Species Survival Commission, will be the need to produce a suitably scary report on how polar bears are being threatened with extinction by man-made global warming.

This is one of a steady drizzle of events planned to stoke up alarm in the run-up to the UN’s major conference on climate change in Copenhagen next December. But one of the world’s leading experts on polar bears has been told to stay away from this week’s meeting, specifically because his views on global warming do not accord with the views of the rest of the group.

Dr Mitchell Taylor has been researching into the status and management of polar bears in Canada and around the Arctic Circle for 30 years, as both an academic and a government employee. More than once since 2006 he has made headlines by insisting that polar bear numbers, far from decreasing, are much higher than they were 30 years ago. Of the 19 different bear populations, almost all are increasing or at optimum levels, only two have for local reasons modestly declined.

Dr Taylor had obtained funding to attend the week’s meeting of the PBSG, but his presence was voted down by its members because of his views on global warming.

The chairman, Dr Andy Derocher, a former university pupil of Dr Taylor’s, frankly explained in an email (which I was not sent by Dr Taylor) that his rejection had nothing to do with his undoubted expertise on polar bears: ‘it was the position you’ve taken on global warming that brought opposition’. Dr Taylor was told that his views running ‘counter to human-induced climate change are extremely unhelpful’.

So much or the objectivity of “consensus” AGW scientists. You would have thought that they would welcome news that the cuddly white killer teddies are not all heading for oblivion.

But no; it appears that they relish the prospect of the bears’ extinction since it is a means to their end of perpetuating the gospel of disaster. More and more, they dismiss and ignore any evidence contrary to their theories of devastation through man-made CO2. And the constituency of contrary evidence is vast, growing and increasingly from natural phenomena rather than human opinion.

By way of one small example, just today, (8 July) CBC reported that:

Temperatures dropped to a record low in Prince Edward Island (Canada) overnight Tuesday, with reports of frost throughout the province. An official record low of 3.8 C was set early Wednesday morning at Charlottetown airport. The previous record for that date was 5.1 C, set in 2005.

Bob Robichaud, a meteorologist with Environment Canada, said that to his knowledge, frost has never been reported before in July in P.E.I. "That 3.8 we got last night kind of sticks out as being lower than some of the other records for anytime in early July," Robichaud told CBC News on Wednesday. "So we're looking at a significant event," he said.

Environment Canada has issued a frost risk warning in low-lying areas of the province for Wednesday night. The temperature is expected to dip to 4 C.

But even "significant" events such as these will be ignored by Pro-AGW theorists, who are dangerous in the myopic narrow-mindedness of their "consensus". However, such a shared vision is an illusion held in common that works only for those willing to be directed (or deceived) by it.

Any reputable scientist would seek to test a theory objectively, but these people do not brook any counter-argument. Their peer reviews are invariably conducted by those who share both their views and the financial incentives to “prove” man-made, CO2-based global warming.

Dr Taylor and thousands like him are being sidelined and stifled by one of the biggest and most dangerous collective grand narratives since communism. And, as under communism, the time is near when objectors will not be allowed to have their say.

AGW proponents are evangelical in their zeal for their “new religion” to manipulate political direction. Throughout history, until recent decades, the mechanism that allowed religion to maintained social control and the dominance of its collective grand narrative was the restriction of information.

The same thing is happening now.

Gandhi once said: "A lie does not become truth by reason of multiplied propagation, nor does truth become a lie because nobody sees it."

We need an open, objective debate before the costs of following AGW’s prophets drive prosperous, free societies into a new Dark Age.

Remembrance

Following recommendations from the Armed Forces Chiefs of Staff, The Queen has agreed that an award will be made to the next of kin of servicemen and women who have been killed while serving their country in conflicts since 1948.

The award will be called the Elizabeth Cross.

In a broadcast to Her Armed Forces today, Her Majesty said:

“In these present times, no less than in previous years, the men and women of our Armed Forces undertake their duties in the knowledge that danger often lies ahead. They know that many have died in the service of our country and that difficulties are ever present.

With this in mind, the Armed Forces have recommended that for those servicemen and women who have given their lives during operations, a special emblem and scroll will be granted to their next of kin. I am pleased to be associated with such an initiative, which is in keeping with a tradition established during the First World War. And so I have asked that this emblem should be known as the Elizabeth Cross.

This seems to me a right and proper way of showing our enduring debt to those who are killed while actively protecting what is most dear to us all. The solemn dignity which we attach to the names of those who have fallen is deeply engrained in our national character. As a people, we accord this ultimate sacrifice the highest honour and respect.

I greatly hope that the Elizabeth Cross will give further meaning to the nation's debt of gratitude to the families and loved ones of those who have died in the service of our country. We will remember them all."

The Elizabeth Cross takes the form of a badge, or brooch, which next of kin may wear if they choose. Some may do so with pride and others may choose not to. Whatever choice they make should be respected.

But they will all take something from knowing that the Sovereign and the nation have marked their loss and sacrifice in a formal and public manner.

But I wonder how many days will pass before some multiculturalist, equalities-obsessed knuckle-dragger will object that the award takes the form of a Christian symbol, since some of those who have died were of other faiths. This issue has already been raised regarding British Honours and Awards.

But in this case, they would be wrong.

Because, on enlistment, every serviceman or woman takes a solemn oath of allegiance to the Sovereign, who is Defender of the Faith. Her Majesty has granted her own name, uniquely, to this mark of recognition to the fallen, and no serviceman or woman, dead, living, or soon to die, would be any doubt of Her sincerity, of would quibble over its form.

It is the views of serving personnel that count in this case, not those of people who criticize our Armed Forces and its traditions, or those who would never consider placing themselves in harm’s way on behalf of our Nation.

This is a good thing that has been done and I pray that very few Elizabeth Crosses need to be awarded in the future.

But until the Armed Forces are properly resourced, I fear they will.